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Why do some people always seem to succeed in life?

I have had the pleasure to interact with many different groups of people of all different ages, genders, backgrounds and socioeconomic status.

When I was younger I worked a minimum wage job scoping ice cream. I had to be friendly and interact with 100’s of customers a day. I really enjoyed that job.

After that job, I started working at a bike shop. I did everything from sales to repairs. I loved bikes and loved working with people.

A year after that I worked as a valet driver for a super high end golf course. Most of the people their made $500,000+ a year. The view of the rolling green hills was always beautiful!

I also volunteered as a firefighter, worked in a hospital as an EMT and had a few corporate engineering jobs. They were all amazing experiences!

The most memorable things about those experiences were the people!

I worked with people old and young….healthy to dying……. filthy rich to dirt poor…..

After interacting with people of all different backgrounds, I noticed was there is a HUGE difference between successful happy people and the people who seemed to be miserable and struggling all the time.

The ONE thing they all had in common was how they viewed their life.

Wealth, age, ethnic background and health wasn’t nearly as important as how they viewed their life…. Consider the following analogy.

Suppose you and I were in the middle of a 10 mile trek across Iceland. We both wanted to document the trip but neither of us brought a camera. Instead we wrote what we saw in our own private journals.

My entry was the following.

Today was cold but the air was so crisp each breathe I took filled my body with vigor. The sky was crystal blue, the longer I looked up, the longer my mind seemed to drift into a space of peace and tranquility. As I continued to walk, each step was like walking on pillows as my feet sank into the moss covering the rocks. In the distance, I could see the beautiful rustic cabin which was the destination for the night.

We will call this description #1 our internal map of the territory we just covered.

Your entry was the following.

Today was so cold it was draining. I wish I was at the beach or at the mall. The sun is too bright and almost blinding since there are no clouds in the sky. Why does it have to be like this? The moss is so deep and squishy it made walking a pain. We won’t reach the old dilapidated cabin until another hour or so.

This is description #2 another version of our internal map of the territory we just covered.

The territory we just covered was exactly the same but our journal entry “maps” were entirely different, how?

No map can truly represent the territory exactly because everything we see, hear, touch, do and say is filtered by our perception! There is no single “right” or “correct” map of the world. Everyone has his or her own unique map and no map is any more “real” or “true” than any other!

The most successful people are the one’s who have a map of the world that allows them to perceive the greatest number of available choices and perspectives. They have a richer and wider way of perceiving, organizing and responding to the world.